"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." Hunter S. Thompson

May 10, 2007

That Old Familiar Feeling

I bought my flights to Borneo today. It was the high point of my day really. It's somewhere I've been looking forward to visiting since the beginning of this trip, without even knowing if I would really make it this far.

Early in August I'll be flying from Kuala Lumpur out to the Malaysian province of Sabah to its capital, Kota Kinabalu. From there, I hope to climb Mount Kinabalu, SE Asia's highest peak, to watch the sun rise. It's going to be tough, by all accounts, and I'm not sure I have the same level of fitness that I did when I tackled the Inca Trail, but I'm not going to let that deter me! I'm going to try it! I'm also hoping to pay a visit to Poring Hot Springs and maybe visit some orangutangs.

Then I plan to travel down through Brunei (if I can get a visa and it's not going to relieve me of too much money) into the province of Sarawak. High on the agenda is a trip down the river to stay with a local tribal family. 2 weeks later I fly from Kuching back to Kuala Lumpur.

I can tell you, it feels good to be planning this next stage of the trip. My friend Hien who lives in K.L. is going to my tour guide while I'm there, which I'm really looking forward to, and he may even make the trip out to Borneo to try and summit Mount Kinabalu with me.

The best bit was that my return flights cost me just 40 euro with Air Asia, which seems to be SE Asia's answer to Ryan Air. Pretty sweet!